Why You Need A Portfolio

I follow a blog all about e-learning ad recently I was reading one of the posts that talked about the need to have a portfolio to show off your work. It got me thinking about all the people looking at thevideoanalyst.com looking to start a career as a Performance Analyst.

Remember that Performance Analysis is about getting sometimes detailed messages across in very manageable ways to sometimes reluctant learners. The same can be said for a job interview, you are likely to only have 30 mins to get your point across to perspective employers.

Remember when you are applying for a job employers are taking a risk on your employment. They will invest a lot of time into you with training and wages etc… A great way to help them a long in their decision whether to give you the job or not is to produce some evidence of the work you have done. This essentially means they can see your work ‘in action’ rather than relying on what you tell them or what they can hope to learn from references.

Opportunities exist. However, when you’re not prepared, you don’t bother looking; and if you do look, you don’t always know what to look for. If you have a portfolio ready to go, when you do hear of a potential job (or other opportunity) you can quickly jump on it. In addition, because you maintain a portfolio of your skills, you’re more apt to think about the skills you need for the portfolio. It then becomes a motivator to learn more.

How?

It has never been easier to create a blog. This is probably the best way to get started. It means you need no webdesign skills. Simply log-on-to wordpress.com or blogger.com and you can have an online presence in 5 mins.

Setup a Youtube channel. Again this should take no more than a couple of minutes and will allow you load up some video of your work. If any of it is private (i.e. teams don’t want you to share their analysis) you can always restrict who can view the video and only give access to perspective employers.

Build a case study for each job you have done. No matter how small a job you did keep your blog updated with everything. Employers will respect the fact that you can work hard and try and make sure you highlight something new from each job.